I can't believe how quickly time is flying! Already halfway through March, wow! Life continues to be great in Perth. The temperature has cooled down to about 85 degrees during the day and 65 degrees at night which makes it much easier to sleep.
My first study break starts next Friday. We have three week long study breaks throughout the semester. Since I'm an exchange student and am not taking the most difficult classes, I feel like I have three spring breaks. On the first break I am going on the northwest trip. I have heard this trip is amazing from others who have studied abroad here. This trip helped me to decide to come to Perth over Lismore, Australia so I am very excited for it. It is a 10 day long camping trip. The first 5 days are spent traveling up the coast where we stop at a number of beaches. One of the beaches is called Monkey Mia where wild dolphins swim in for a feeding. Another is Coral Bay on the Ningaloo reef which has very good snorkeling and scuba diving. The second 5 days are spent traveling inland. During these days we see one of the world's the oldest mountain range-Hamersley Range, Karijini national park, and Fortescue Falls. It will be a very busy 10 days and I can't wait to go!
My roommates and I had a picture night. We showed slide shows of our homes as well as tried to convince one another to visit our home countries. My next trip may have to be to Zimbabwe to visit Dan, it looks beautiful there! I showed several pictures of the blizzard in December and Dan had never seen snow. He could not get over the concept of having to dig your car out of the snow. My roommates decided to avoid the extreme temperatures and visit in the summertime.
I keep mentioning the Australian lingo and so here are a few words the Aussies say:
Arvo - Afternoon
Bathers - Swimsuit
Bikkie - Biscuit
Boardies - Swim trunks
Brekkie - Breakfast
Bush - The outback
Cheers - Thank you
Chop - To be good at something
Cockie - Cockroach (we have an infestation in the kitchen, that's how I know this one)
Dodgy - Sketchy or creepy
Footy - Australian rules football, rugby, or soccer (this one is very confusing because I never know which one is being discussed)
Freo - Fremantle (suburb of Perth)
Freo Doctor - Wind that comes off the ocean
Hungry Jack's - Burger King
Kebab - Sandwich wrap
Maccas - McDonald's
Mozzie - Mosquito
No worries - You're welcome
Oz - Australia
Sunnies - Sunglasses
Activities have slowed down since the start of classes so here are a few random pictures from throughout the last two weeks.
Proof that I do study and work on homework
A list my roommates and I made of the various activities we want to do while I'm visiting.
There are parrots everywhere! They are very pretty birds but often wake me up at 6am due to their loud chirping! Black parrots are the most common but occasionally I see green or pink ones.
I visited a new beach called Coogee Beach. I still visit the beach every weekend but since the Freo doctor (see above) arrived, sand is blasted everywhere and it makes it more difficult to just lie in the sun. The beach is still lovely though.
Jumping off the pier at Coogee Beach
There was an art exhibit at Cottesloe Beach called 'Sculptures by the Sea.' These shoes are all made out of sand!
Also part of the art exhibit
Still getting used to public transportation in Perth. Here we are waiting for the bus to the train station
Waiting for the train to arrive.
Really makes me miss the convenience of cars!
One of my roommates, Tom
Next time I write, I will have pictures from the northwest trip!
On day 3 we woke up bright and early to get to Monkey Mia to see wild dolphins be fed. These dolphins swim up every morning and are the most photographed dolphins in the world. I have never seen dolphins so close. They would roll on their side to get a good look at us - perfect photo opportunity! After the dolphin feeding we went on a sailboat called the Aristocrat II. We rode on the boom net on the back of the boat. This was so much fun! I had to hold on tight to the net otherwise I felt like I was going to fly off! For lunch we stopped at Shark Bay. We were too early in the year but during later months hundreds of sharks swim up the bay to feed. Also, while we were eating lunch we saw a wild emu. Wisconsin has squirrels that cross the road, Australia has emus! Later in the day we visited Shell Beach, which is a beach that has no sand and only shells! Very cool. Finally, we saw stromatolites that were near our campsite. There are only two or three places in the world where stromatolites can still be found due to the need of high saline levels. It was neat to see the first oxygen-breathing organisms. 
Day 4 was spent driving to Coral Bay. We reached the campsite around dusk and visited the beach before it got too dark. There were sting rays everywhere in the water! We had to watch where to step so as to avoid getting stung! Day 5 was my favorite! I had the opportunity to swim with whale sharks! We first snorkeled where we practiced getting into the water quietly and quickly. On this snorkel we saw a reef shark, leopard shark, and a manta ray. Next, the spotter plane radioed in explaining they spotted a whale shark about 40 minutes away in the open ocean. By the time we reached the spot of the whale shark, everyone had their snorkel gear on and we got in the water. I couldn't see anything at first but then spotted this giant white mouth coming towards me. I quickly swam out of the way and saw an 8 meter long (about 28 feet) whale shark swim by. It was such a spectacular sight. We swam with this whale shark three times before it dove. We then sped off the find another. This whale shark was a "baby" of about 6 meters long. We swam with this shark twice before we scared it off and it dove. It's crazy to think that we could scare off a fish the size of a bus. Finally, we snorkeled one more time and saw a number of reef fish and a sea turtle. Swimming with whale sharks was by far the coolest thing I have ever done and was well worth it!
